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Nintendo
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (任天堂株式会社 Nintendō Kabushiki gaisha?) is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan founded on September 23, 18891 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards.4 By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel.5 Eventually, Nintendo developed into a video game company, becoming one of the most influential in the industry and Japan's third most valuable listed company, with a market value of over US$85 billion.6 Besides video games, Nintendo is also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team in Seattle, Washington.7 According to Nintendo's Touch! Generations website, the name "Nintendo" translated from Japanese to English means "Leave luck to Heaven".8 As of October 2, 2008, Nintendo has sold over 470 million hardware units and 2.7 billion software units.9 As a card company (since 1889) Nintendo was founded as a card company in late 1889, originally named "Nintendo Koppai". Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The handmade cards soon became popular, and Yamauchi hired assistants to mass produce cards to satisfy demand. Nintendo continues to manufacture playing cards in Japan11 and organizes its own contract bridge tournament called the "Nintendo Cup". New ventures (1956–1975) In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi (the grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi) visited the U.S. to talk with the United States Playing Card Company, the dominant playing card manufacturer in that country. He found that the world's biggest company in his business was only using a small office. This was a turning point, where Yamauchi realized the limitations of the playing card business. He then gained access to Disney's characters and put them on the playing cards to drive sales. The Nintendo Love Tester In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited to Nintendo Company, Limited. The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using the newly injected capital. During this period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network and a food company (trying to sell instant rice, similar to instant noodles). All these ventures eventually failed, and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped, leaving Nintendo with 60 yen in stocks. In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, an extending arm developed by its maintenance engineer Gunpei Yokoi in his free time. Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new "Nintendo Games" department as a product developer. Nintendo continued to produce popular toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester and the Kousenjuu series of light gun games. Despite some successful products, Nintendo struggled to meet the fast development and manufacturing turnaround required of the toy market, and fell behind the well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy. In 1973, the focus shifted to family entertainment venues with the Laser Clay Shooting System, using the same light gun technology used in Nintendo's Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys. Following some success, Nintendo developed several more light gun machines for the emerging arcade scene. While the Laser Clay Shooting System ranges had to be shut down following excessive costs, Nintendo had found a new market. Electronic era (since 1975) In 1974, Nintendo secured the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey home video game console in Japan. In 1977, Nintendo began producing its own Color TV Game home video game consoles. Four versions of these consoles were produced, each playing variations on a single game (for example, Color TV Game 6 featured six versions of Light Tennis). A student product developer named Shigeru Miyamoto was hired by Nintendo at this time. He worked for Yokoi, and one of his first tasks was to design the casing for several of the Color TV Game consoles. Miyamoto went on to create some of Nintendo's most famous video games and become one of the most recognizable faces in the video game industry. In 1975, Nintendo moved into the video arcade game industry with EVR Race, designed by their first game designer, Genyo Takeda 13, and several more titles followed. Nintendo had some small success with this venture, but the release of Donkey Kong in 1981, designed by Miyamoto, changed Nintendo's fortunes dramatically. The success of the game and many licensing opportunities (such as ports on the Atari 2600, Intellivision and ColecoVision) gave Nintendo a huge boost in profit. In 1980, Nintendo launched Game & Watch, a handheld video game series developed by Yokoi, to worldwide success. In 1983, Nintendo launched the Family Computer (commonly called by its shortened name "Famicom") home video game console in Japan alongside ports of its most popular arcade titles. In 1985, the console launched in North America as the Nintendo Entertainment System, and was accompanied by Super Mario Bros.. In 1989, Yokoi developed the Game Boy handheld video game console. Nintendo is the longest-surviving video game console manufacturer to date. The Nintendo Entertainment System was superseded by the Super Famicom, known outside Japan as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). This was Nintendo's console of the 16-bit 4th generation, and its main rival was the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. A fierce console war14 ensued, where the SNES was victorious. The SNES eventually sold 49.10 million consoles15, around 20 million more than the Mega Drive. The Nintendo 64, most notable for its 3D graphics capabilities, introduced the analog stick and built-in multiplayer for up to four players, instead of two. It also introduced the Rumble Pak, an enhancement that produced force feedback, which was the first such device in the history of home console gaming, and has become an industry standard.16 The Nintendo GameCube followed, and was the first Nintendo console to use optical disc storage instead of cartridges.17 The most recent home console, the Wii, uses motion sensing controllers 18 and has online functionality (although the GameCube did also have some basic online capabilities), used for services such as Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, Virtual Console and WiiWare19. editHandheld console history After the Game & Watch, the handheld development continued with the Game Boy, the Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Color, each differing in minor aspects. The Game Boy, the best-selling handheld and second best-selling console of all time, continued for more than a decade until the release of the Game Boy Advance, featuring technical specifications similar to the SNES. The Game Boy Advance SP, a frontlit, flip-screen version, introduced a rechargeable, built-in battery, instead of using AA batteries like its predecessors. The Game Boy Micro was released in 2005, after the Nintendo DS's release, but did not sell as well as its predecessors. The Nintendo DS Lite, a remake of the DS, improved several features of the original model, including the battery life and screen brightness. It was designed to be sleeker, more beautiful, and more aesthetically pleasing than the original, in order to appeal to a broader audience.20 On November 1, 2008, Nintendo released, in Japan, the Nintendo DSi, an improved version featuring larger screens, improved sound quality, an AAC music player and two cameras—one on the outside and one facing the user.21. It was released in the USA, Europe, and Australia at the start of April, 2009. The most recent Nintendo handheld console is the Nintendo DSi LL, which was released on November 21, 2009 in Japan. In North America and Europe, it will be known as Nintendo DSi XL and will be released in these regions during the first quarter of 2010. Handheld console history After the Game & Watch, the handheld development continued with the Game Boy, the Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Color, each differing in minor aspects. The Game Boy, the best-selling handheld and second best-selling console of all time, continued for more than a decade until the release of the Game Boy Advance, featuring technical specifications similar to the SNES. The Game Boy Advance SP, a frontlit, flip-screen version, introduced a rechargeable, built-in battery, instead of using AA batteries like its predecessors. The Game Boy Micro was released in 2005, after the Nintendo DS's release, but did not sell as well as its predecessors. The Nintendo DS Lite, a remake of the DS, improved several features of the original model, including the battery life and screen brightness. It was designed to be sleeker, more beautiful, and more aesthetically pleasing than the original, in order to appeal to a broader audience.20 On November 1, 2008, Nintendo released, in Japan, the Nintendo DSi, an improved version featuring larger screens, improved sound quality, an AAC music player and two cameras—one on the outside and one facing the user.21. It was released in the USA, Europe, and Australia at the start of April, 2009. The most recent Nintendo handheld console is the Nintendo DSi LL, which was released on November 21, 2009 in Japan. In North America and Europe, it will be known as Nintendo DSi XL and will be released in these regions during the first quarter of 2010. Content guidelines For many years, Nintendo had a policy of strict content guidelines for video games published on its consoles. Although Nintendo Japan allowed graphic violence in its video games, nudity and sexuality were strictly prohibited. Former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi believed that if the company allowed the licensing of pornographic games, the company's image would be forever tarnished.25 Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe went further in that games released for Nintendo consoles could not feature nudity, sexuality, profanity (including racism, sexism or slurs), blood, graphic or domestic violence, drugs, political messages or religious symbols (with the exception of widely unpracticed religions, such as the Greek Pantheon).26 The Japanese parent company was concerned that it may be viewed as a "Japanese Invasion" if it introduced adult content to North American and European children. U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman praised this zero tolerance policy, but others criticized the policy, claiming that gamers should be allowed to choose the content they want to see. Despite the strict guidelines, some exceptions have occurred: Bionic Commando, Smash TV and Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode contained blood and violence, the latter also contained implied sexuality and tobacco use; River City Ransom and Taboo: The Sixth Sense contained nudity, and the latter also contained religious images, as did The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and Castlevania II and III. A known side effect of this policy was the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat selling over double the number of Nintendo's Super NES version, mainly because Nintendo had forced publisher Acclaim to recolor the red blood to look like white sweat and replace some of the more gory attacks in its release of the game. By contrast, Sega allowed blood and gore to remain in the Genesis version (though the Genesis version of the game required a code to unlock the gore). Nintendo allowed the Super NES version of Mortal Kombat II to ship uncensored the following year with a content warning on the packaging.27 In 1994, when the ESRB and in 2003, the PEGI video game ratings systems were introduced, Nintendo chose to abolish most of these policies in favor of consumers making their own choices about the content of the games they played. Today, changes to the content of games are done primarily by the game's developer or, occasionally, at the request of Nintendo. The only clear-set rule is that ESRB AO-rated games will not be licensed on Nintendo consoles in North America,28 a practice which is also enforced by Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo has since allowed several mature-content games to be published on its consoles, including: Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Doom and Doom 64, BMX XXX, the Resident Evil series, killer7, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, BloodRayne, Geist and Dementium: The Ward. Certain games have continued to be modified, however. For example, Konami was forced to remove all references to cigarettes in the 2000 Game Boy Color game Metal Gear Solid (although the previous NES version of Metal Gear and the subsequent Gamecube game Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes both included cigarettes, as did Wii title MadWorld), and maiming and blood were removed from the Nintendo 64 port of Cruis'n USA.29 Another example is in the Game Boy Advance game Mega Man Zero 3, in which one of the bosses, Hellbat Schilt in the Japanese and European releases, was renamed Devilbat Schilt in the U.S. localization. In the U.S. releases of the Mega Man Zero games, enemies and bosses killed with a saber attack would not gush blood as they do in the Japanese versions. However, the release of the Wii has ensued in a number of even more controversial, mature titles, such as Manhunt 2, No More Heroes, The House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld, the latter three of which are published exclusively for the console. The Nintendo DS also has its own violent games, such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Dementium: The Ward "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" and Resident Evil: Deadly Silence. License guidelines Nintendo of America also had guidelines in 1993 for its licensees for them to make games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, in addition to the above content guidelines:25 Licensees were not permitted to release the same game for a competing console until two years had passed. Nintendo would decide how many cartridges would be supplied to the licensee. Nintendo would decide how much space would be dedicated for articles, advertising, etc. in Nintendo Power. There was a minimum number of cartridges which had to be ordered by the licensee from Nintendo. There was a yearly limit of five games that a licensee may produce for a Nintendo console. This rule was made due to caution of over saturation which caused the North American video game crash of 1983. Konami wanted to produce more games for Nintendo consoles, yet the last rule restricted them. As a result, Konami formed both Ultra Games and, later, Palcom to produce more games.25 This disadvantaged smaller or beginning companies, as they could not form additional companies at will. Also, Square (now Square Enix) executives have suggested that the price of publishing games on the Nintendo 64 along with the degree of censorship and control that Nintendo enforced over its games—most notably Final Fantasy VI—were factors in moving its games to Sony's PlayStation console.needed editSeal of Quality Nintendo's Official Seal of Quality in NTSC regions The Nintendo Seal of Quality (currently Official Nintendo Seal in NTSC regions) is a gold seal first used by Nintendo of America, and later Nintendo of Europe, displayed on any game licensed for use on one of its video game consoles, denoting the game has been properly licensed by Nintendo (and, in theory, checked for quality). It is a golden starburst with the text "Original Nintendo Seal of Quality" or "Official Nintendo Seal". The starburst is circular in PAL regions, such as Europe and Australia, and elliptical for NTSC regions. Gamers understandably were wary of game makers when the Nintendo Entertainment System came out in 1985. The 10NES lockout chip solved the problem of controlling access to the console, but there was the issue of customer confidence. Publishers were also encouraged to create high-quality titles in other ways. Each publisher was only allowed five releases per year (with certain exceptions),30 Originally, for NTSC countries, the seal was a large, black and gold circular starburst. The seal read as follows: "This seal is your assurance that NINTENDO has approved and guaranteed the quality of this product." This seal was later altered in 1988; "approved and guaranteed" was changed to "evaluated and approved". In 1989, the seal became gold and white, like it currently appears, with a shortened phrase, "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality". It was changed in 2003 to read "Official Nintendo Seal" rather than "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality". Currently, the seal makes no guarantee of quality software, instead referring to the fact that the item is published or licensed by Nintendo.